Leaders of the former Soviet Union were behind the assassination attempt against Pope John Paul II in 1981, an Italian parliamentary investigative commission said in a report

Russia orders Pope Assassination?

The momentum for a change in the national policy on abortion is going to come in the not-too-distant future," said Rep. Roger W. Hunt, a Republican who sponsored the bill. To his delight, abortion opponents succeeded in defeating all amendments designed to mitigate the ban, including exceptions in the case of rape or incest or the health of the woman. Hunt said that such "special circumstances" would have diluted the bill and its impact on the national scene.

S.D. Abortion Bill Takes Aim at 'Roe'

OMG look at this cat.

'Monster' Cat In China Weighs 33 Pounds

The United States is engaged in what could be a generational conflict akin to the Cold War, the kind of struggle that might last decades as allies work to root out terrorists across the globe and battle extremists who want to rule the world, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said yesterday

Yeah, I guess it would irresponsible to pull out now. Or like, EVER.

20 Year Plan for Iraq?

A little over two weeks ago, Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) declared the race for majority leader over. He released a statement announcing that a majority of Republicans had pledged support to him. It was a publicity stunt, of course, an effort to turn an early lead into an invincible stampede. But he honestly believed he was on an unstoppable trajectory to victory.
John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), on the other hand, thought the claim was bogus. Camped out in a smoky office in the basement of the Longworth House Office Building, Boehner was hearing from dozens of disgruntled members of the House Republican Conference who were fed up with the current direction of the GOP and rumors that Blunt was trading favors such as better committee assignments for votes.

Post-Abramoff Mood Shaped Vote for DeLay's Successor

Brown says his experience in elections, especially campaigning for U.S. Rep. Jim Marshall, D-Ga., convinced him that voting by absentee ballot is a key part of Republican strategy.
"I think it's fair to say," he said. "They had an absentee ballot plan as part of their marketing and much more extensively than the Democrats."
And who can blame the GOP?
Absentee ballots have been very, very good to them.
The New York Times, after a six-month investigation into the 2000 election in Florida, reported in 2001: "Under intense pressure from the Republicans, Florida officials accepted hundreds of overseas absentee ballots that failed to comply with state laws."
The Times found 680 questionable votes from Americans living abroad.
"Although it is not known for whom the flawed ballots were cast, four out of five were accepted in counties carried by Mr. Bush," the Times wrote. "Mr. Bush's final margin in the official total was 537 votes."

Really fascinating article about Voter ID.

Voter Fraud Made Easy

Make a fashion statement while you support our brilliant president.

Raising Awareness about Human-Animal Hybrids

— President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela joined Cindy Sheehan, the American antiwar activist, on Sunday to attack President Bush and promised to support her protest against the Iraq war.
Mr. Chavez has become a voice for many opponents of the Bush administration's policies who are drawn to his self-styled socialist revolution and his close alliance with the Cuban leader, Fidel Castro.

chavez and sheenan unite for a magical hour of Bush-bashing. Wish I had been invited.

Antiwar Campaigner Speaks on Chávez Broadcast - New York Times

The Founding Fathers anticipated debates such as the one stemming from George W. Bush's illegal spying. Well acquainted with the excesses of mad monarchs named George and the excuses for tyranny peddled by their partisans, Benjamin Franklin warned, "They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." James Madison understood how seductive the claims of national security could be, pointing out that wartime is "the true nurse of executive aggrandizement."

A good editorial is hard to find.

Madness of King George

WASHINGTON -- The staff of U.S. Rep Marty Meehan wiped out references to his broken term-limits pledge as well as information about his huge campaign war chest in an independent biography of the Lowell Democrat on a Web site that bills itself as the "world's largest encyclopedia," The Sun has learned.
The Meehan alterations on Wikipedia.com represent just two of more than 1,000 changes made by congressional staffers at the U.S. House of Representatives in the past six month. Wikipedia is a global reference that relies on its Internet users to add credible information to entries on millions of topics.

Those freaking hill interns. Well, at least we now know that they can read and write. I must say that comforts me.

Wikipedia defaced by congressional interns